DESERT LAND LAW. Under the group of acts known as the Desert Land Law, any citizen of the United States 21 years of age or more or any person of such age who has de clared his intention of becoming a citizen and who is a bona-fide resident of the State or Ter ritory in which the land to be entered is located, and who has not previously exercised the right of making desert land entry, may take not to exceed 320 acres of arid land which he proposes to reclaim by conducting water thereon within four years from the date of his application. He must acquire a clear right to the use of sufficient water to irrigate and re claim the whole of the land entered or as much of it as is susceptible of irrigation. At the time of filing his application he must pay the sum of 25 cents per acre. Each year after entry for three years he must file proof of hav ing expended not less i than $1 per acre or a total of $3 for the necessary irrigation, reclama tion and cultivation of the land, in permanent improvements thereon and in the purchase of water rights. Thereafter upon proving com pliance with the law as to reclamation of one eighth of the irrigable area and the payment of $1 per acre he will receive patent for the lands. Title may be acquired in less time if the showing required by the law is made.
The Desert Land Law is the result of con ditions found as the settlement of the public lands pushed westward beyond the hundredth meridian. It soon became evident that a large part of the public domain was semi-arid and that new agricultural conditions must be met by legislation.
The first attempt was by means of special legislation passed 3 March 1875 for the sale of desert lands in Lassen County, Cal., in tracts of not more than 640 acres at a price of $125 per acre. The land was to be reclaimed conducting water thereon within two years. This act was a departure in two particulars from the policy of the Homestead Act enacted 13 years before and being then the principal mode of disposing of public lands, first in not requiring residence on the land, and second in allowing an individual to take four times the limit of area fixed in the homestead law.
The general Desert Land Act was passed 3 March 1877, and applied to practically all the States and Territories in which desert land is found. The principal difference from the former act was in allowing three years for reclamation instead of two.
The Act of 30 Aug. 1890 limited the amount of land which anyone could acquire under any or all the public land laws to 320 acres. The Act of 3 March 1891 provided more in detail as to the requirements of reclamation and de manded for three years the annual proof of an expenditure of $1 per acre in the reclamation of the land and in permanent improvements thereon. The entryman is also required to cul tivate one-eighth of the land.
The lack of residence requirement and the ease with which the proof of expenditure could be made opened the way for much fraud under this act and the amount of land permanently improved under it is disappointingly small.
The opportunities for irrigating lands on a scale which could be handled by a small number of individuals were comparatively few and experience showed that irrigation companies which did not also own or control the land to be irrigated were seldom financially successful. Congress has not been willing • to give indi viduals or corporations control of large areas such as was necessary for the success of the more extensive and costly irrigation enter prises. The limit of individual development was therefore soon reached and some new plan became necessary.
To meet this situation Congress provided a method of encouraging reclamation by the States under the Act of 18 Aug. 1894 known as the Carey Act, and later Congress provided for the reclamation of the arid lands by funds from the public treasury under the Act of 17 Tune 1902 known as the Reclamation Act. See RECLAMATION LAWS. For the soldiers' and sailors' relief acts of 1917-18, see HOMESTEAD LAWS.